Yemen

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said earlier this year, "we recognize that the challenges facing Yemen cannot be solved by military action alone." (..) Yemenis displaced by a conflict in the North and living in camps are having their food rations cut. This is the result of low funding from the international community for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).

Millions of Yemenis are starving while the international community focuses on security issues and tackling al-Qaida, according to the United Nations. (..) "They are in a total poverty trap," Gian Carlo Cirri, WFP country director, said. "Most of the time they are illiterate, they have no access to land or water. The children are not attending school and the probability of having a malnourished child in the family is extremely high."

My interview with Jennifer Mizgata of the World Food Programme (WFP) detailed the hunger crisis facing Yemen. Daly Belgasmi, the regional WFP director for the Middle East, Central Asia and Eastern Europe recently made an address to the League of Arab States in which he urges action to help Yemen.

Yemeni security forces have arrested 11 Al Qaeda suspects in the capital Sanaa, killing one man during the operation, security officials said Thursday. (..)Since a ceasefire was concluded between the Yemeni government and the Houthis Feb 11, the Red Cross said international organisations were struggling to deal with the demand for services as displaced people tried to return home.(..) The World Food Programme distributed food to around 14,700 displaced people in Mandaba camp in the district of Baqem, near the Saudi border.

U.N. agencies have warned they will have to start scaling back aid to a quarter of a million people uprooted by conflict in northern Yemen unless donors commit more money for the provision of food, water and other life-saving relief. (..) According to a recent survey by the U.N. World Food Programme, one in three Yemenis - or 7.5 million people - suffer chronic hunger.

Abeer Etefa of the UN World Food Programme made a visit this week to camps in Yemen, which are home to thousands of people displaced by conflict. You can read her report here. The Yemenis are enduring ration cuts while living under tremendous hardship in these camps.

Jennifer Mizgata, a WFP officer based in Washington, DC, went to Yemen in December. There she visited camps which are home to thousands of Yemenis who have been displaced by the conflict in the north. Recently, she took time to talk about the dire food situation at the camps and for all of Yemen. How many people in the camps are currently receiving rations from WFP? WFP and its partners are working hard to reach people that have been displaced by the Sa’ada conflict, reaching out to those who have taken residency in the camps and those who remain scattered throughout the countryside.

The United Nations food agency said on Friday a lack of funds had forced it to cut back rations for around one million people in Yemen, despite growing chronic hunger. (..) "We don't physically have enough food to give everybody a full ration. That means we are reducing the rations to stretch it out and make it last as long as possible," said Emilia Casella, spokeswoman of the World Food Programme (WFP).

The humanitarian situation in Yemen is worsening, yet donors are shunning the country, putting life-saving programs at risk, the top United Nations aid official said on Thursday.(..)The World Food Program (WFP), a U.N. agency, has indicated that its "food pipeline is about to break and they will have to reduce the numbers they are helping" in Yemen, he said. The WFP is feeding Yemenis in camps for displaced persons, as well as children in schools and many of the 150,000 Somali refugees in Yemen.

The convergence of multiple crises in an already vulnerable environment has left Yemen and aid agencies at a crossroads. The context has become an extremely complex and challenging one within which to reduce hunger, malnutrition, and fragility. Yet it is precisely because of these challenges that humanitarian intervention is vital to keep struggling populations from tipping into utter disaster.